Where do I belong?

All the quizes that are out there just amaze me. I thought this one was funny. I think it fits me kinda well.

You Belong in 1985

Wild, over the top, and just a little bit cheesy. You're colorful at night - and successful during the day.

What Year Do You Belong In?

Sorry I'm forever behind on the blogging. Hopefully I'll be moving to a house with the internet soon!

More Adventures in Costa Rica

This Wednesday we went to the temple and Satan was sure working hard to keep us from getting there. First of all we missed our bus by 5 min. and it only comes once every hour. SO, we took another bus to the temple, and a car ran into us! Yes it hit the side of the bus and slid all the way down. The front was all smashed and a windshield ruined. I couldn´t see all the damage to the bus. Everyone on the bus was fine. It hit the opposite side that I was on but I could still feel it hit! It was crazy so everyone had to get off the bus and get on another bus. Then we realized the stop closest to the temple was still a 20 minute walk away up this huge huge hill. The sessions only run every two hours so they had 25 min before the session started. So we booked it up there. (Wade talking to a kid on a bike doing missionary work all the way) It was so hot and tiring walking but we made it in time for their session by like 5 min. Then they told us they don´t do baptisms on Wed and they didn´t have enough workers! Sad! But Wade and another boy with us, Dustin offered to stay and help and they found two more workers so we got to do them how fortunate!

So now for the funny story that you know had to come. So when I got done with baptisms I was walking down the hall and I remembered I hadn´t seen a shower in the dressing room so when I walked down the hall I noticed another door was open and so I went in and found the shower... took a nice long shower. Then I came out and started looking around... I wonder where this connects to my dressing room? hmm... there are other dressing rooms here... hmmm why is that picture of a MAN on the wall? That´s right, I was, in fact, in the mens locker room in the temple wearing only a tiny tiny towel! There was no one in there, thank goodness, so I paniced and ran out hoping I could make it into the girls dressing room without anyone knowing but I ran into a temple worker lady on my way out of the mens dressing room and she had a very puzzled look. I could barely find the words in enlgish much less in spanish so I managed to stutter ¨wrong room¨ I had no idea if she understood me. It was all I could do not to bust up laughing the whole time in the dressing room. I came out and Amanda was dying of laugher. She just watched me walk into the mens bathroom and didn´t bother rescuing me.

Amanda said the temple worker lady heard the water shut off and waited a minute and then came back to ask me if I needed another jumpsuit for confirmations and went into the dressing room and came out with a very puzzled look and then I ran out of the mens. So she had to get me a suit for confirmations and I just had to stand there in my towel till she got back and I had to face her again. Then after I changed I went out and she asked me, in spanish of course, uh, did you get lost? I stuttered yes and made her promise she wouldn´t tell anyone! ha ha. I think that would only happen to me, or possibly Maranda! :)

This last weekend we decided to go to the beach to scuba dive. We didn´t have exact plans of where we were going to stay or how we were getting there. We decided to take the public bus to the beach. The bus was full when we tried to buy tickets but we got on the bus and bought tickets anyway. I didn´t realized till later that we purchased standing tickets to stand in the asile for 2 hours! So we ended up sitting on the floor of the bus where ther open spot for wheelchairs is. It was quite the adventure. I enjoyed the spontenity and feel of it, but I was extremely grateful for my seat on the ride back!

So we went scuba diving and I got to see and TOUCH a white tiped shark! Pretty Awesome. I tried to post the picture and it´s not working. Sorry. We saw lots of cool things and it was great.

¡Pura Vida!

Hello everyone from Beautiful Costa Rica!

I have been in Costa Rica for about a week now and it is fabulous. I am staying with a family here and they are so amazing. They are very nice and I was worried about not being able to communicate with them very well but it´s great and if we don´t understand each other we resort to acting things out or my family guessing the words that they know in english. By the way they are so cute when they try to say things in english! My ¨father¨ was trying to say sausage the other day and it was impossible for him but so so cute. When we got here he said in english ¨I am your dad in Costa Rica!¨and it was in the most adorable accent ever! I have noticed that my spanish has improved alot. Actually I´m not sure if my spanish has imporved the most or just my cofidence in using it. I only speak in spanish to my family and it´s nice to get to use it so much. All the classroom practice of spanish just doesn´t add up to the real thing. They are so great to be too. Every day our mom washes our laundry, by hand, and makes us a fabulous breakfast and dinner and makes our bed and clean our room a little bit. I feel so spoiled being here! What an amazing opportunity it is for me to be here.

I was super worried about the food here just because I am so picky but I have like all the food that we have had here. My mom here is a fabulous cook. We have even had....yummy funeral potatoes here! I almost died when I found out we were having them for dinner. I love my life or in spanish Amo mi vida! Amo mi vida has become an everyday phrase for us!

Pura Vida is the national phrase down here. Directly translated it means pure life but it just means that life is amazing and everything is great. It´s on all the merchandise and everything, it´s kinda fun. You say good morning they say Pura Vida!

I know you are all wanting to hear a funny story from down here so here goes... As I mentioned earlier our mom does our laundry by hand. The first night amanda and I just had our underwear that we needed to wash so we put it in the hamper. We didn´t know that she did it everyday but we found out when we came home the next day and our underwear was gone. We were discussing for a mintue the idea that she probably had to hang them to dry but we wondered where but we didn´t think anything of it. So later that day our buddies Wade and Jeff came over to our house to visit with us and our family. Our dad took us out in the back porch area to show us his orchid collection. Then we went around the corner to see the aloe vera plant, which by the way have flowers, And there next to the aloe vera plant are two pairs of panties and one pair of socks. Amanda and I busted up laghing. I couldn´t help but be in awe of the awkwardness of the situation, there was nothing I could do but laugh it off. It took the boys a while to notice them, but they did. To top it off Amanda´s were bright pink and mine had lots of huge smiley faces on them! I was looking through Jeff´s pictures of the plants and there were our panties in the picture. The momory is saved forever for posterity! I thought I´d share it with you. :)

Costa Rica is fabulous! Pura Vida!

The WienerMobile

Quite a while ago (because I'm so behind on blogging) we had our Spring Formal dance while my date and I were driving to dinner (at one of our friend’s house) we drove past none other than the 27 foot long and 11 foot high Oscar Mayer Wienermobile!! Right there on the side of the road on a residential street. I about flipped out with overjoyed excitement. I made my date stop and I got out and took pictures of this fabulous find. It was huge and so awesome. As we were finishing taking pictures a group of people walked up to get inside and go for a ride. Had I not been on a date trying to maintain some type of normalcy after my outburst and been in a hurry to get to dinner, I would have asked if I could jump on board with this awesome family.

I’ve since looked up some facts about the Wienermobile on the internet and according to Wikipedia this fabulous car is one of only 6 in existence! They are identified by their licese plates: Our Dog, Hot Dog, Big Bun, Oscar, Yummy, and Weenr. And it turns out they recruit recent college graduates to drive these Wienermobiles around the country and they are called “HotDoggers.” It’s a good thing I have just graduated because I know what I am doing with my future now… driving a giant hot dog and passing out weenie whistles to ecstatic children (and possibly college students).

¡Voy a vivir en Costa Rica por un mes!

Hey everyone I am going to live in Costa Rica for the month of June! I am doing a study abroad through Weber State and will be studying Spanish and living with a host family, while having so much fun! Green jungles, waterfalls, beautiful beaches, and hopefully some neat marine life I can see while scuba diving. I have been studying Spanish for 6 years and will be getting my minor in it. I am still totally a fish out of water in my conversational Spanish and I’m hoping that this language immersion trip will help me out a bunch. I will miss all of you so much it makes me sad to think about it. I’ll keep you posted as I know more later. I just figured I would let you all know it was official because I’ve paid my deposit and I’m working on getting my passport!

Trip Home

I hadn’t been home since Christmas and it was due time. I just missed my family way too much. I had to plan it a month in advance, but I got to go home!! As has become traditional for the last few times I’ve gone home, I brought some friends- Anna, Maranda and Jon.

Talk about packing snacks for a road trip- Good Job Mar!

We started out weekend with a tour of the snowcave. It has since gotten bigger, collapsed on my dad, and then been rebuilt and reinforced. I can stand up in it now. Bryan enjoyed showing off all of his hard work, here are some fun pictures from the cave.

Crazy Faces- Jon, Anna, Me, Bryan, and Maranda

Tall enough to stand in!

Then we had a fabulous dinner that my Mothey made. If any of you have not had the privilege of eating her food, I apologize. She’s amazing and makes food of a restaurant caliber. As soon as the word gets out we’ll probably have people bringing dates to our house for a night on the town. We finished up the night with a chocolate fountain, Maranda was pretty excited, as you can tell! I was excited because I talked James into going to the store to get me some white chocolate because I love it so much and he did and I ended up with my very own bowl of white chocolate to dip in…could life get any better? I submit it cannot.

Well we retired to bed in order to rise early the next morning to go snowmobiling. But not before a home cooked breakfast, Idaho style complete with potatoes! Once again my mom is the best! Maranda and Anna had never been snowmobiling before and we so excited for their new adventure. While packing our lunches in the morning we were told to grab whatever we wanted to drink. We had small juice bottles so Maranda grabbed two. Then she asked, “Are there a lot of places to go to the bathroom up there?” to which my dad informed her, “Yeah, all over the place. You can go wherever you want!” She said, “Oh,” thought for a minute and put one juice back. LOL! When we stopped for lunch Maranda ventured off to go to the bathroom, she asked a few questions and I gave all the advice I could about being a girl and peeing in the wilderness… in the wintertime…with all your snow clothes. What an adventure. She came back with a little grin and informed us it was her first time ever peeing in the wilderness and it was successful. I’m so proud! Way to go Mar! I love you. Both Maranda and Anna did so well and everyone was impressed by their skills. Where ever we went they were right behind us following in our tracks! Jon did well too. After telling me over and over that he wasn’t very good he went out like an old pro and had a ball! I also improved on my carving and by improving I mean I learned a fact that no one had bothered to tell me before and made all the difference between me just tipping the snowmobile over on top of me and being able to successfully carve! I was proud, and so was my dad.

Anna is excited to go!

Me, Maranda, and Jon

Maranda's "I peed in the woods" face.

In front of the trailor after we were all done!

All in all it was a successful ride and we were all exhausted when we got home. We all ended up in a pile on my bed to lounge and talk, my brothers even came and joined us, it was awesome!

Sara's Wedding

Sara Buckley married Eric Woodbury on February 15. This wedding was a pretty exciting one. I’m really good friends with both of them so it was fun to know both of their family’s at the wedding. Eric’s family is the family that takes care of me in Utah and I love them so much!

I also feel an additional sense of pride because it was at my Ugly Christmas Sweater party in 2006 where they had their first kiss… underneath my mistletoe. They weren’t dating and it took Eric about another month to finally ask her out, but it all started at my house! Here is a picture from this year’s ugly sweater party of them under our makeshift mistletoe!

Sara asked Lynsi, Whitney and I to be her bridesmaids. We were to dress in silver (Thus the purchase of the silver shirt which I wore to the Dance too!) After the wedding I went around with Sara and Eric to help look for the details in the pictures they were taking. So I followed them around straightening her necklace and dress, moving hair out of her face, or anything else I could think of while they got their pictures taken. It was fun to get to spend so much time with them on their busy day. It was a cold one though; I couldn’t feel my feet when I got to my car because the only dressy shoes I have are sandals! It was windy so they didn’t have the fountain on but Eric knew the grounds worker (because Eric makes friends with everyone) and he willingly walkie talkied and asked them to turn on the fountain so they could take a picture. Talk about connections!

They had a dance at her reception and it was so much fun. All the girls danced to “Our Song” by Taylor Swift, which has become a sort of theme song over the last year. To top the whole night off I ended up catching the bouquet so you know what that means!